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Mag'har Cuisine
The Mag'har people have undergone dramatic changes in their society and their homeland over the last fifty years. With war, famine and total ecological collapse, their diet has had to shift in small ways, but has remained remarkably unchanged in others - and thus, bears little resemblance to much of contemporary Azerothian Orcish cuisine. Common Ingredients Meats and Dairy *Talbuk meat. *Snake and raptor meat. *Clefthoof meat. (and milk, in WoD) *Mild and sharp cheeses, though of what milk is uncertain. *Crawdads. *Pickled elekk hooves. Fruits, Vegetables and Grains *Fruits and vegetables, unspecified varieties. Presumably Outlands natives. *Olemba sap? Sweet and sticky.Rise of the Horde Prime among the grains cultivated by the Mag'har is millet. Originally a wild grain, Mag'har millet strains were domesticated centuries ago. Initially planted throughout the areas of nomadic wandering (for later harvest), millet is now grown in a more conventional fashion. It was briefly supplanted by other grains, but has experienced a massive resurgence of importance over the last four decades. With much of Draenor now a blasted and infertile ruin, with rain and water supplies scarce and valuable, the ability of millet (and a number of other 'wild' grains) to thrive in adverse conditions has given it great value. Where more luxurious crops fail, millet survives and nourishes the Clans - and as such, has become a mainstay of the Mag'har, Fel Orcs, and Broken Draenei alike. Used in stews and soups, millet also forms a mainstay of the diet in the form of grainbread. Millet flour, often mixed with flour from other grains or whole wild seed grains, is mixed with water and allowed to ferment, then baked, resulting in a characteristically soft, sourdough loaf. When other grains are mixed in, the millet flour provides a reliable binder and base, and helps cover for difficulties with fermentation found in some wild seed grains. Techniques *Drying and smoking. *Boiling and roasting meat. *Baking grains. Earth Pit Cooking A common technique among the Mag'har tribes, earth pit cooking entails digging a large pit which is then filled with stones and hot embers from a fire - or, sometimes, lined with with animal skins and then filled with water which is then boiled by the addition of hot stones. This means of cooking is low energy and requires few tools, though it can at times be slow. It's primary advantage for the pre-agricultural Orcish peoples was one of easy portability - a pit-oven may be dug anywhere, and requires no permanent structure. It allows for the roasting of otherwise inedible foodstuffs, especially root vegetables and grains, which made it an invaluable technique. It remains in use today among the Mag'har, and usually employed for meats and tubers, though sometimes crawfish are steamed over the pit in bulk quantities. While primitive, it is a proven method and an efficient one in the devasted landscape of Nagrand. Stewing Equally common among the Mag'har peoples is the making of stews, which transform tough and unpleasant cuts of meat and vegetables into tender and entirely edible meals. These stews are usually made in whatever is to hand, either in stone or metal cookware, and very rarely in animal hide 'pots'. One particularly noteworthy product of this technique is the Mag'har blood porridgeRise of the Horde; made by the overnight soaking and slow stewing of millet and other grains with animal blood and sometimes spices as may be had. The resulting product is a thick, almost black porridge which may be eaten as is or further cooked with the addition of a starch into a sort of 'dumpling'. Eaten to provide strength and fortitude, blood porridge also ensures that the salt and energy found in the blood is not wasted or otherwise misused, and fortifies an otherwise lacking meal. Tribal Specialties Rationale and Disclaimer *This article blends pre-collapse and post-collapse Mag'har cuisine freely. Many of the pre-Collapse dishes should still be quite applicable. *As the Mag'har are concentrated in Nagrand, there isn't a regional specialties entry here, but tribal instead. This may be removed and the page may go in a Dalaran-style direction instead. *A great deal of this article will be fanon, as the current content is pretty much the sum total of what we know about Mag'har and pre-Collapse orcish food. *Earth oven cooking isn't referenced anywhere, but makes sense for the Mag'har as a people struggling to survive on a harsh world. It's not resource or labour (well, aside from digging the pit) intensive and works extremely well for cooking otherwise inedible - even toxic - plants for long enough that they become digestible. When faced with a choice of roasting roots for two straight days or starving, roasting wins - and since earth ovens are one of the most efficient means to do so, earth ovens win-out over more 'civilized' techniques. *Millet is one of the few grains to receive no mention at all in Warcraft, but is selected here for its incredibly valuable role as a 'fall-back' crop. Additionally, it receiving no mention on Azeroth is actually thematically appropriate if it's a Draenor plant - though of course, maize is sometimes considered millet as well. Category:Food Category:Mag'har